Script: (No guarantee of accuracy.)
Tentacled snake, name for the two appendages perched on the tip of its nose, is a master of ambush. But this snake has caught something other than fish lately. It’s caught the eyes of scientists.
Its markable strategy for catching prey has become a subject to study.
In the wild, the snake lives in the rivers in Southeast Asia.
It camouflages itself by holding a pose that resembles a dead tree branch. As an unsuspecting fish swims nearby, the snake swings into action and swallow it whole.
It happened so quickly that it is impossible to capture with regular film. But when view at 2000 frames per second, about a hundred times the speed of standard film. The snake’s strategy becomes clear.
It uses a quick flick of its body to start on the fish, corralling it toward its head and into its mouth. The snake exploits reflex that normally helps fish it captures. Two large nerves on either sides of the body called Mauthner Neuron react pressure ways and involuntarily cause the fish to move in the opposite direction.
Most of the time, this mechanism works in the fishes’ favor. But the Tentacled snake creates false waves, causing the fish to the wrong direction and straight into its waiting jaws.
What about those unusual tentacles that give the snake its name? Those are actually highly-involved motion detectors perfectly tuned to the movement of fish. They let the snake detect food even in murky, silty water, its natural environment. They are features that strike fear and sometimes fangs into heart of fish everywhere.
To learn more about the Tentacled snake, read the article “Natural-Born Killer” in the April issue of Scientific American.
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